


no phoenix rising

by Greenhollyhox



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Destroy Ending, F/M, Gen, ending expansion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-07
Updated: 2013-07-07
Packaged: 2017-12-18 00:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/873859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greenhollyhox/pseuds/Greenhollyhox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes a week for Tali to bring herself to visit Shepard’s grave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	no phoenix rising

The Reapers are gone, but the galaxy still burns. 

It will be years before the relays are fixed, decades before a proper accounting can be made for all those lost, possibly centuries before the galaxy is restored to what it was. 

A mere month after crashing the Normandy and fixing it enough to be space-worthy, Tali can only flinch every time she passes Garrus or Joker in the halls and sees two men as dead as the their lost lovers. 

She mourns in her own way for Shepard and EDI, throwing herself into the maintenance of the Normandy so they can get back to Earth. Ken and Gabby say nothing, but she appreciates that they find things to do below engineering when her sight wavers or she finds herself short of breath. 

At night, she drinks to the woman who had been more like a sister than just a captain these past three years, and the AI that had finally come into her own, only to crumple in Joker’s arms under the angry light of the Reaper’s destruction. 

Their eventual return to Earth is met with relief, and more heartbreak. 

The Geth are all dead. Shepard’s body has been found and buried. There is no project that can trump death a second time. 

Rear Admiral Hannah Shepard meets them at the docking station, and though her voice is as calm in the face of tragedy Shepard’s was, the tears silently flowing down her face and disappearing into her black uniform break Tali’s heart anew. 

She remembers the stoic woman she had met at Shepard’s first funeral, and compares it to the woman carefully hugging Garrus and whispering in his ear, his subvocals keening at a volume she can easily hear several feet away. 

Hannah, as she insists they call her, gives each of the squad members a hug that makes her ribs ache through the suit. Tali closes her eyes, remembering how similarly Shepard had hugged her when they found her father. The sheer strength of the hug somehow makes it more comforting, and Tali shudders in Hannah’s embrace.

“Thank you for watching over my daughter. I’m glad that what time she did have back on this galaxy she spent in the company of such good friends.” Tali can only shake her head, and squeezes the last Shepard harder as she whispers her reply. 

“Shepard was the one always taking care of us. The greatest honor I could have as a Quarian was having a Captain like her, but the even greater honor was having her as a friend.” Shepard’s mother smiles through her tears, and Tali wishes she could wipe away her own as Hannah does before turning to hug Liara, the first time Tali has seen the asari out of her quarters in a week. 

It is almost a relief to part from the crew as they each pursue what leads they can about their home worlds and people. 

Tali knows that only time and hard work will help many of the Normandy’s crew find peace, herself included. It is how she got over her father’s death, and though Shepard meant more to her, that must mean she will only have to pour more of herself into helping the fleet. It’s what Shepard would want, for Tali to build the home so hard won for herself and her people. 

A few ships of the former Migrant Fleet are still stationed around Earth, helping collect the debris around the planet before it started to fall into the atmosphere and investigating the foundered Geth ships. 

Still an Admiral, Tali finds herself politely denied from doing the basic labor she wants to, and is instead stuck coordinating teams and trying to find a way to contact other Quarian ships deployed throughout the galaxy. The only base of operations they can find on Earth is an abandoned office building, full of creaking exposed beams and groaning heaters that barely give off enough heat to combat the raw chill of the air in London. It seeps through her suit and leaves Tali irritable as she punches in commands with stiff fingers.

With the relays only partially reconstructed each crackling sentence she gets back is a gift from the ancestors, even if it only confirms that her people’s numbers have been reduced by thousands, and will be unable to leave their suits for decades again now that the geth are truly gone. 

It takes a week for Tali to bring herself to visit Shepard’s grave. 

It is Liara who insists, sending her a copy of vid file that she said was meant for her and Garrus, and that Garrus goes to Shepard’s grave every afternoon. Quarians have not buried their dead in centuries, and the idea of visiting after the funeral and reopening still bleeding wounds makes Tali hesitate to even step out the door and make her way to the cemetery.

She is told, later, that there was a rather vicious battle between Hannah Shepard, Admiral Hackett, and Shepard’s own will about what to do with her body. 

To no one’s surprise, Shepard had asked to be cremated, and her ashes spread ‘on some piss-hole of a jungle planet that only my crew or my mother will know about. Make sure I don’t kill any indigenous life there though.’ With the absence of the Normandy, Hannah had cremated her daughter but kept the ashes, waiting to see what would become of her daughter’s ship and crew. 

She soon came under pressure from the Alliance, who wanted to bury the ashes in an elaborate tomb and monument to the ‘Hero the Galaxy’.

In the end, a modest memorial is constructed where Shepard was beamed up to the Citadel, and Shepard’s remains are buried at Highgate. She doesn’t understand the significance of most of the other graves she passes (and the practice of burying the dead still bothers her Quarian sensibilities) but Tali dutifully follows the stammering guide to Shepard’s grave before giving the young man a look through her visor that makes him quickly scurry away. 

Despite the inefficiency inherent in giving valuable space to the dead the cemetery is beautiful, if eerie, and Tali slowly sits down on the stone path, eyeing the greenery around her and the way it seems to separate the dead here from the modern structures in shambles on the other side of the trees.

Shepard’s grave is still bright white against the vegetation, only a few leaves disturbing the tall column topped by a model of the Normandy. Tali is relieved there is not a bust of Shepard’s face like many of the other graves, as the idea of sitting and looking at a stone replica of her friend would have been too much to bear. The clean black lettering of her full name and the final date of her death is a sharp enough ache. 

“It just doesn’t feel right.” She finally murmurs into the still air. “You were supposed to stay alive this time, and be recovering in some hospital bed right now. Terrorizing the nurses and helping Garrus pull pranks on them so you could get out faster. Because you would only heal faster with him. I was going to the godmother of at least two of your five krogan kids. Joker was going to steal the Normandy and sail off with EDI. I would build my house, and have the crew over at least once a year. We would toast Legion, and Mordin, and Thane. Captain Anderson too, of course. Laugh about how the hell we all managed to survive and retire. I’d give you and Garrus the best guest room, because it would have a view of the ocean just like my room. I-It wasn’t supposed to be like this, Shepard. Y-You were going to c-come b-back.” The leaves crinkle under her feet as she draws her knees up, curling herself into a ball as she regards her friend’s tomb and bites her lip. 

The tears fall regardless, and she does not know how long she silently stares at the clean lines of the stone marker before she turns her head to the sound of another’s footsteps approaching. Her skin itches at the movement, dried tears pulling at her skin. But she knows the cadence, could pick it out in a battlefield, and as Garrus comes up and sits next to her it’s all she can do to hold out her hand, and not flinch at the painful pinch of his talons around her more slender fingers. 

“I ordered her to come back.” Is all he croaks, and she shifts closer to rest her shoulder against his. 

“She would have if she could.” Is all she can think to whisper. The silence lingers on, and though Garrus does not speak she can feel more than hear the throbbing hum of his subvocals at her shoulder and along her arm. It matches the tremor of her own shoulders. 

She can smell the rain coming when Garrus finally shifts against her, but before he can move to stand up Tali tightens her grip on his hand. 

“I have something for you. For us. It’s a vid… it’s from Shepard.” She slowly turns her head to see Garrus’ expression, lowering her visor to bump comfortingly at his shoulder at the agonized clench of his mandibles. 

“Play it.” She releases his hand to start up the vid, quickly recapturing it and matching his pained inhale as Shepard’s face appears before them.

She looks more tired than Tali has ever seen her, covered in blood and with parts of her hair burned off. The collar of her armor is a melted mess, and Tali convulsively clenches her jaw, suddenly grateful they did not see Shepard’s body before it was cremated. The vid is fuzzy, but the audio is surprisingly clear as Shepard starts to speak. 

“Garrus. Tali. I don’t have much time left. I’m...making my way to the control panel. Have to find Anderson. It’s... ugh!” They both flinch as she gasped and hunched over, and Tali almost turns the vid off before Garrus’ hand stops her. 

“I don’t… think I’m going to make it out of this one. Bit more fitting than running out of air at least but… somehow I have more regrets this time than I did the last time I died. And if this is it… If I don’t make it after I pull the switch… I can only hope—guh—that you two live, and see this. 

“You’re my oldest friends, the ones that have believed in me and put with my crap the longest. I don’t know if I ever let you know just how much I appreciated that, but I did. I only kept going sometimes… because you two were so insistent that I could win. Ash… got me into poetry a little bit before she died. My favorite was always, ‘Think where man’s glory most begins and ends… and say my glory was I had such friends.’ 

“It…hurt— God did it hurt— to make you two leave at the end. But even if I die, you two will live. I need you to live. Grow old and—agh— be happy. Garrus... I love you. I meant what I said. I always will. Your love… kept me from going crazy there… at the end. Made me want to keep fighting…even if was only for a slim chance of a beach house….and some kids that were ours even if I had to skip pregnancy. And don’t you dare… take any shortcuts joining me at this bar. I’ll… be keeping a close eye to make sure you don’t. And I’ll hoard all the good drinks for when you get here.

“Tali… please, take care of Garrus for me? Prank him, poke him; make sure he doesn’t calibrate himself to death…okay? And… make sure your house is… perfect. I want it to be filled with lots of adorable quarian children, because it’d be a crime if you don’t add to the gene pool.” She gasped and closed her eyes, her arm lowering enough for Garrus and Tali to see the scorched mess of the rest of her armor. Blinking, she quickly raised it again. 

“Sorry for the… view. I… think I’m going to log off now. Can’t… climb these fucking stairs and… talk at the same time right now. I love you both, but I have to end this.” Her lips quirked through the pain, as she lifted a shaking hand to stop recording. 

“Someone else would have gotten it wrong.” 

The screen fuzzes to black, and Tali buries her visor into Garrus’ shoulder, lifting her arms to wrap around him and feeling him fiercely return the embrace as they both cry, Tali’s hitching wails joining Garrus’ louder lament in the otherwise still cemetery air.

**Author's Note:**

> Tali and Garrus were my Dextro Duo, my main babes throughout all three games. While I was somewhat satisfied with the extended cut's short moment between Shepard and Garrus at the evac in London... that last painful stretch through the Citadel I kept thinking that I wished Shepard had called the Normandy, gotten in one last goodbye to the two of them and the rest of the crew if only she had the time. 
> 
> And while I had the military force to have Shepard live in my playthrough... I thought of this scene as the relays fell apart on my computer screen. And then I had to go and write it out. 
> 
> Also, that Yeats quote? It's what I thought personified my mostly paragon Shepard.


End file.
